XAMPP MySQL failing to start after WIN 11 Update

Question

Win 11 with an XAMPP installation, everything was running fine. Had to restart the PC and had a Windows update as well. When I come back MySQL will not start up.

This is the error log. I am running it as Admin, not sure what I need to do to fix this.

2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [Note] InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use Windows interlocked functions
2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [Note] InnoDB: Uses event mutexes
2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [Note] InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.2.11
2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [Note] InnoDB: Number of pools: 1
2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [Note] InnoDB: Using SSE2 crc32 instructions
2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [Note] InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, total size = 16M, instances = 1, chunk size = 16M
2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [Note] InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool
2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [Note] InnoDB: 128 out of 128 rollback segments are active.
2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [Note] InnoDB: Creating shared tablespace for temporary tables
2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [Note] InnoDB: Setting file 'E:\barkeeper\xampp\mysql\data\ibtmp1' size to 12 MB. Physically writing the file full; Please wait ...
2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [Note] InnoDB: File 'E:\barkeeper\xampp\mysql\data\ibtmp1' size is now 12 MB.
2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for purge to start
2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [Note] InnoDB: 10.4.19 started; log sequence number 15569034; transaction id 163623
2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [Note] InnoDB: Loading buffer pool(s) from E:\barkeeper\xampp\mysql\data\ib_buffer_pool
2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [Note] Plugin 'FEEDBACK' is disabled.
2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [Note] Server socket created on IP: '::'.
2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [ERROR] Fatal error: Can't open and lock privilege tables: Incorrect file format 'db'
2022-03-24 18:13:12 0 [ERROR] Aborting

Answer 1

I fixed it, here is how:

1. Close the Xampp application ( preferably using task Manager)
2. Open C:\xampp\mysql folder
3. Rename the data folder to data_old
4. Copy and paste the backup folder named backup_copy
5. Rename the backup_copy folder to data
6. Open data_old folder, copy all folders except mysql folder, performance_schema folder and phpmyadmin folder.
7. Go to the newly renamed data folder, paste the folders from step 6 inside.
8. Open the data_old folder, copy ibdata1
9. Paste it in the data folder
10. Start Xampp, everything should be working now.